Trevor adopts Gary and Ryan discovers Inequalities

As some of you may have heard, Trevor has gained a pet snail this week.



John found it in the back yard and helped Trev create a little snail house for the day in one of the flower vases. Trev was super excited and bonded with the snail pretty quickly.























The thing managed to stay alive and further googling showed that snails might be more durable than we thought. So John got a bigger box for the snail and they created a little habitat and dubbed him "Gary". We've found that Gary seems to like to sleep in the afternoon and all evening. So it's worked out that we usually find Trevor hanging out with Gary in the mornings when we wake up. He's pretty careful with him and seems to respect Gary's fragile nature. And Trevor said he'd wipe up any slime.


Gary's new home--Trevor colored pictures of snails to line the shelf so Gary wont feel lonely

Ryan's discoveries have more lately been the injustice and inequalities that exist for him throughout the house. He seems to be determined to reach the 4 year old status now and has been a bit more insistent and vocal in his big boy aspirations. It seems to come up more often at meal times--wanting to have the same utensils (mostly with non-sippy cups), wanting to sit in normal chairs, and wanting to grab food at his leisure. So he's been able to have regular cups sometimes when we eat outside, sit in a regular chair outside, and sit at the breakfast bar on occasion. There's a theme there...


eating ice cream on his own in a real chair outside


two big boys having breakfast at the bar

Alaska Trip

We got to go up to Alaska this summer again for a couple weeks--late July/early August. Every year feels a little different with the boys being older and different each time. The weather was a bit more damp than usual, but overall we were still happy given that the temperatures were well under 100 degrees.


Trevor fishing. He was very excited about his rubber boots--wore them everywhere the entire trip.

We went to Kasilof for the first weekend so John, George and dad could go drift fishing. Grandma, the boys and I hung out around the house, found a cool park in Soldotna, tried to watch a parade but ended up being rain/drizzled out, and then went to Dairy Queen. Not a bad day.


The property backed right onto the Kasilof River






Grandma caught a Ryan fish


Ryan had grandma go down the slide with him many many times

Ryan took to Grandpa pretty quick. He liked wearing Grandpa's hat, and learned a new phrase "Come on!" while visiting. As in 'come on Grandpa, lets go for a walk'.






Trev was pretty good at getting Uncle Sam to play in his playhouse

We took the boys on a little hike out of the Eagle River Nature Center. Trevor was not in the mood that day and continually explained how this was 'not a good idea at all' and that he hated it. He had some spurts of interest when we'd come to the walkways and when I'd let him take some pictures... but over all he stuck to it being 'a very bad idea'.


Pouting


Happy again to be on the walkway


Ryan had fun







We went to Benihana one night. I had the boys on my own most of that day because John, George and dad went golfing and mom was working. They were very excited to see their grandparents again after being seperated the entire day.


So excited to see Bapa


The look of one happily spoiled little boy


Ryan using chopsticks

The airshow took place the second weekend of our visit. It was pretty cool to look around and watch the planes. Even for someone with minimal knowledge of airplanes.


This seemed to be one of the more interesting parts for John and George




Popcicle break under the wing--it was one of the warmest days of our visit


Trev was pretty excited to be wearing boots and a hat like a fireman

We took Trev out on his own to have lunch, walk around downtown a bit, and go to the museum.


Lunch at the counter cause we're cool like that... and didn't want to wait over an hour for a table


Aaahhh! We're touching the sun! --planet walk downtown


Interactive exhibit at museum

John and I went out to Thunderbird Falls. It was super fun--we went out on the rocks at the bottom and got so used to the mist that the light rain on the walk back was barely noticable.

A camping we went

We went camping last weekend up at Troy Meadows. It's up past Kennedy Meadows a little ways, maybe an hour and a half from town (wasn't keeping track...). The area was really nice. Lots of trees and nice temperatures. Turns out the area is also very popular for dirt biking. They were all very quiet at the campground, but it was very noticeable when walking around that we seemed to be the odd ones out without the bikes resting near our area.


We're guessing this might be the 'meadow'




Trevor is always excited to climb


Cooking dinner... sometime before this point I stopped trying to keep up with the boys' grubbiness


Can you spot the clever Ryan?


Ryan seems to be camera trained--he was popping in between the trees saying "cheese!"

We discovered something partway into the trip. Ryan REALLY likes inclines. So the major lesson we learned is that we should get a campsite that is down from the road instead of a little up. Ryan's favorite activity was to run down slopes. So into the road and then down the road. We took quite a few little jaunts up and down the hill (he'd only want to walk up maybe half the time though).


Weee!




The next morning--Trevor guiding Ryan back up the hill. I think he was saying something like "see Ryan, that's number 17" (referring to the site markers)

The next day we had our pancakes, played around a little, and then packed up before finding a good hiking spot. It rained overnight a little but things weren't too damp.


Happy Hikers

Trevor did really well for the hike. It was probably an hour and had a little altitude gain. There were enough rocks to climb over to keep his interest. And he decided that he was a super hero pretty early on and used his 'sticky boots' and 'sticky hands' to help along the way. It was a good reframing for him because he got some sap stuck on his hands that wouldn't completely come off. So he definitely made the best of it.



I think most of his happy moments were on top of large piles of rock

Ryan and I waiting for Trev and John to come back down from the rocks. Ryan was declaring 'no' to saying cheese... getting tired.


Drive home

Dancing, Water and Fireworks

Not that they're necessarily connected...

I took a video of one of the boys' recent dance offs. They definitely both have their own style.



Ryan's dancing is sometimes interrupted by finding cheerios on the ground and the techno/screen saver like thing that shows on the TV while the music plays.

Trevor finished up his swim lessons. They lasted every day for two weeks. He managed to have the driest head in the entire pool. He did make a lot of progress from last year though--he participated every day, wore a life jacket, jumped in from the side, and even went down the slide once on the last day. What he really seemed to enjoy was trying to hang on the metal ladder bar thing and climb on the walls. So I signed him up to start gymnastics again. He's pretty excited about that.



For 4th of July we went to the Griffen's and they set up a big blow up water slide. Trevor seemed to quickly overcome his aversion to getting his head wet. He even went over to the kiddie pool and purposefully dunked his head. He said that he wasn't sure in swim class but now has had enough time to think about it and decided it's okay.



We all went to a parking lot to watch the city fireworks. John bought some 'lame California fireworks' that Trevor and Matthew appreciated setting off before the show.








Trevor decided he wasn't shy around the girls when he found out they had popits